If it doesn't go well tonight things are going to get toxic immediately, aren't they?

[Burney]

It's great fun. One gets a train to Shortlands, or Bickley; the rush hour has finished and a sense of post-storm calm pervades. The dappled sunlight fills the carriage and one is wafted past the backsides of houses - stealing glimpses of the inhabitants' most intimate moments. At Beckenham Junction we leave the old Victorian railway infrastructure and are delivered into the 21st century tram system, all automated announcements and LED lighting. An elderly Muslim gentleman boards at Arena and leaves at Lebanon Road. One muses upon his journey; why must he go to Lebanon Road at 09:30 on a Thursday morning? Is he to play chess with his friend Sadiq, with whom he arrived on a BOAC flight from Entebbe in 1972? How do they feel now about the cosy, comfortable suburbia of Addiscombe, nestling under London's bottom like a chick garnering warmth and goodness from its mother. Arrival at the court and, after 4 days, the security guards now wave you through with a wink and a cheery 'Good morning' and no longer insist, somewhat sternly, that you take a sip from your water bottle to prove it doesn't contain acid. At the lift you bump into a couple of other members of your panel and exchange tales of your journeys and hopes for an early finish; these people have almost become friends, yet you know that you will never speak to them again once this trial is over.

The whole thing is impossibly romantic.

This is much the most positive tale of Jury service I've heard. It almost makes me not want to avoid the thing like the plague, should I ever be called.

[Sir C]

This is much the most positive tale of Jury service I've heard. It almost makes me not want to avoid the thing like the plague, should I ever be called.

Bear in mind I don't get out much, so any experience of the real world is quite exciting for me.